Action experience in infancy predicts visual-motor functional connectivity during action anticipation

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Action production and perception are closely linked in early development.
• Understanding how action experience shapes action perception and anticipation in infants is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how infants' action experience alters neural networks involved in action perception and anticipation.
• To explore the relationship between motor competence and functional brain connectivity in infants observing actions.

Main Methods:

• Utilized electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity in 9- and 12-month-old infants.
• Assessed infants' motor competence in familiar (grasping) and novel (tool-use) actions.
• Developed a novel approach to capture functional connectivity specific to brain regions.

Main Results:

• Greater motor competence in grasping predicted enhanced functional connectivity between visual and motor brain regions during action anticipation.
• Visual and motor regions showed increased coordination for familiar actions and in older infants.
• These effects were specific to visual-motor networks, not observed in control networks.

Conclusions:

• Infants' motor development significantly predicts functional connectivity patterns during action anticipation.
• Visual-motor neural coherence strengthens with motor skill acquisition and age.
• This study highlights the role of visual-motor networks in linking motor skills to action encoding in infants.